PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Now when we examine the bits and pieces circulating between Mars and
Jupiter we draw from sacred theology in our understanding of just what went
wrong. First of all, we know that the Almighty Himself is extraordinary
in all His perfections. The same created the heaven and the Earth complete
and perfect in the day of creation, and declared it "very good."
There were no fragments or byproducts of incomplete work and no effects
of trauma or destruction. It is not within the nature of God to have created
a universe, or solar system, or the Earth for that matter, that is incomplete
or fragmented at the outset. In other words God is efficacious in His work.
He did not make an incomplete or unfinished planet as the nebular hypothesis
would lead us to believe. Nor would He have made something with only the
mere appearances of completion when it is not.

The beginning chapters of the Bible declare that God had "finished"
his work by the end of the creation week and beheld His work, "Thus
the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them,"
and "saw that it was good." (Genesis 1 and 2) The changes since
creation are, again, to be linked to very the entrance of iniquity, the
consequent curse, and subsequent wars, strivings, and so on, among Gods
creatures. The manifest physical effects are therefore an inevitable byproduct.
This is what we indeed see in the cosmos. The original solar system was
created "clean," whereas now it is filled with dust (zodiacal
light), dirt (meteoroids), flying mountains (planetoids), and drifting volatiles
(comets). It makes little sense that God's purpose in a "very good"
universe would include broken fragments which are representatives of discord
and agents of planet-devastating impacts, as well as being a rubble field
of jumbled waste circling the Sun. All of this is the result of a creation
afflicted, not of a "creation in process." Since the cosmos was
completed on the sixth day of creation ours is not a universe where "new
stars are being born" at present. The well known Orion nebula, which
is currently touted by scientists as a place where "stars are being
born" is more likely a place of stars in demolition. The M-57 planetary
nebula in the constellation Lyra is a famous example, well known to amateur
observers, of a star that exploded and left its expanding shell of gas and
dustvisible as a stellar "smoke ring." The Bible declares
unequivocally that the creation was "finished" by the end of the
sixth day. What space age technology revealed to us is a pattern of disorder
and destruction in a universe that was once unbroken. "Andthere
was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and
the dragon fought and his angels..." (Revelation 12:7)

When the ancient planet exploded, effectively jettisoning itself from
the Sun's field, it likely sent a resounding shutter throughout the solar
system in a similitude not unlike that of a small raft drifting in the water
with several people aboard which rebounds when one member falls off. The
recoiling effect may very well have somewhat modified the orbital elements,
hence balance, inclination, and orientation of the other planets, a situation
further aggravated when the broken pieces began to arrive at and collide
with these other solar system members. The record of these impactions is
readily apparent on the faces of many planets and their moons. At "ground
zero" the explosion signature dissipated into the strewn rubble of
the asteroid belt, remaining at present, which represents a small portion
of the original mass of metal and rock fragments.

The overwhelming bulk of the flying debris was evidently lost into deep
space or lost within the solar system as missiles that impacted the surviving
worlds. Most of the meteoritic impact features on the Earth, called astroblemes,
were evidently completely covered or eroded during the Flood. It was during
this time that most of the cosmic debris from out of the sky would have
bombarded the Earth. The object that formed Arizona's famous Meteor Crater
was obviously a late comer impacting still relatively fresh laid sediment,
not long after the Deluge. There are no records of the event by the American
Indians or any other inhabitants of the area, suggesting that the collision
occurred before the advent of human habitation in the area but perhaps not
long after the dispersion at Babel.

In spite of the fact that most modern scientists hold to the idea of
a prolonged bombardment of the planets and the Moon by meteorites, to the
contrary the evidence indicates a relatively brief period of rather intense
activity. Of particular interest are the photographs of the planets, and
of the far side of the Moon returned from space by the robotic probes. All
of these celestial bodies show a particularly conspicuous fragments. The
overwhelming bulk of the flying debris was evidently lost into deep space
or lost within the solar system as missiles that impacted the surviving
worlds. Most of the meteoritic impact features on the Earth, called astroblemes,
were evidently completely covered or eroded during the Flood. It was during
this time that most of the cosmic debris from out of the sky would have
bombarded the Earth. The object that formed Arizona's famous Meteor Crater
was obviously a late comer impacting still relatively fresh laid sediment,
not long after the Deluge. There are no records of the event by the American
Indians or any other inhabitants of the area, suggesting that the collision
occurred before the advent of human habitation in the area but perhaps not
long after the dispersion at Babel.

In spite of the fact that most modern scientists hold to the idea of
a prolonged bombardment of the planets and the Moon by meteorites, to the
contrary the evidence indicates a relatively brief period of rather intense
activity. Of particular interest are the photographs of the planets, and
of the far side of the Moon returned from space by the robotic probes. All
of these celestial bodies show a particularly conspicuous hemispherical
asymmetry in terms of their surface cratering, in other words the planets
show considerably more craters on one side than on the other. This completely
puzzled the scientists. This effect can, although, be explained in terms
of a large cloud or wave of asteroid sized particles which swept by the
planets in less time than it took for the individual planets to rotate,
thus scarring one side more than the other. This not only explains the observed
effect in the solar system but also gives us the added information of where
the majority of these objects have gone. After passing the planets they
just kept on going and are now very distant. This is likely the single brief
interval of large scale impacts which tore apart the entire outer crust
of the back side of the Moon which is far more heavily cratered than the
near or Earth side of the satellite. Also of interest is the fact that when
early man-made space probes were placed in orbit around the Moon, their
orbits varied in an unexpected manner. This was found to be due to "mascons,"
or unexpected concentrations of mass beneath the maria. For some reason
the rock under the maria is denser than the rock elsewhere. These density
variations cause the gravitational forces to vary from place to place and
hence cause the satellites' orbits to vary from the expected path. The mascons
are most likely very large dense iron meteorites buried beneath the maria.
The enigmatic terrestrial counterparts to these mascons are possibly the
places on Earth where large magnetic meteorites are buried, and which effect
odd influences on suspended plumb bobs, radio communications with airplanes
that fly over these areas, and other anomalous phenomena. The Oregon Vortex
and the Bermuda Triangle are perhaps the best known locations of these possible
"terrestrial mascons.

Meteor Crater, Arizona, Cross Section: Based on test drillings made
up to 1925, a very dense material was located under the south rim of the
crater. This material, likely to be the main mass of the meteorite, is a
very heavy dense iron-nickel substance. Much of this material was found
scattered around the adjacent desert. Giant buried iron-nickel meteorites
provide an explanation for the "mascons" on the Moon. Enormous
chunks of this material buried at impact sites on Earth could also explain
the anomalous gravity, magnetic, and electrical interferences associated
with certain areas.

From the evidence in the aggregate we may attempt to reconstruct, through
a model, a possible likeness of the original planet which once existed between
Mars and Jupiter. I First of all, the name Olympus for our planet, which
means "the home of the gods" seems to be quite fitting in keeping
with the traditions of Greek mythology, and, just as well, quite likely
the Biblical accounts of fallen angels. The alternate name "Phaeton"
(pronounced FAY-ton, or "Fay" for short) chosen by the Russian
scientist, E. L. Krinov, seems equally apt, for Phaeton tried to drive his
father's chariot across the heavens, but, being unable to control the fiery
steeds, he perished. Phaeton isspecifically connected to the myths
in a confusion in the management of the chariot of the Sun, by which Heaven
and Earth were threatened with a universal conflagration, during which trouble
the vain and obtrusive Phaeton was struck and killed by a thunderbolt and
hurled headlong into Eridanus, "the River of the Judge," while
such burning heat fell upon the world in great disasters that turned vast
sections into sterility and emptiness.

This mythological account sounds strangely similar to some of the apocalyptic
Biblical accounts of fallen angels, judgment and destruction. In the minor
prophets, in the Book of Nahum, is further reference to the same sort of
judgment coming forth from the throne of God: "Who can stand before
his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of His anger? His fury
is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him." (Nahum
1:6) The attempt to reconstruct the ancient planet is not new. In the last
century an eminent British astronomer, Sir David Brewster, among others,
described our lost planet as being intermediate in size between the Earth
and Mars. Most likely it was a terrestrial planet rather than a gas giant,
as would be ascertained by its debris. It had a rotation period of 57 1/2
hours, a near zero inclination of its rotational axis, and an orbit that
was only slightly inclined to the ecliptic, and nearly circular. The planet
revolved around the Sun once every 4 1/2 years. Phaeton's probable surface
gravity would have been about two-thirds of the Earth's. The planet might
have had a deep transparent nitrogen rich atmosphere, and a surface temperature
of minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Evidence indicates that perhaps the surface
was somewhat glassy and covered with carbon dioxide and water ices. Admittedly
much of this is speculative at best but it does give us something to work
with as a rational model to consider.

The nature of Phaetonic satellites, if there were any, is beyond reasonable
speculation. Although there may have been one or more such moons, no clues
as to their presence around the planet has been discernible amongst the
planetary debris in the asteroid belt.

In terms of their "cosmic charisma," asteroids seem to rank
behind black holes, supernovas, and the like. In the last few years, although,
several of these humble lumps of interplanetary rock and metal briefly entered
the scientific limelight, regaining some of the sensation associated with
asteroids during their heyday in the last century. In October 1991 the Jupiter-bound
Galileo space probe sped past asteroid Gaspra transmitting back to Earth
a striking photographic image of the 12 mile long pockmarked and cracked
irregular shaped body from less than 1,000 miles away. The image showed
abundant evidence that Gaspra is merely a piece of something bigger that
was broken apart by some great forceful event, an evidence that was not
expected by the scientists in their current thinking. Not long afterwards
another photograph showed a similar looking asteroid, named "Ida"
with a small satellite companion. A satellite to an asteroid was a most
unexpected discovery.

To a present day observer on Earth the only vestige of Phaeton still
visible to the unaided eye is the fragment, or asteroid, named Vesta, and
this only under the most favorable circumstances of sky conditions and visual
acuity. Vesta is not the largest planetoid but it is the brightest. The
largest is Ceres, although Ceres is very dark, reflecting only about six
percent of the sunlight that reaches it. When it is brightest, at opposition,
Vesta shines at about magnitude 6.0 which barely puts it within naked eye
detection. For comparison Uranus shines at magnitude 5.8, while the threshold
of naked eye visibility in a dark sky is taken to be 6.2. The latter is
equal to the brightness of a candle flame set at six miles away from the
eye, in total darkness. Even the largest asteroids appear in a telescope
as mere stars, not showing a sensible disk. The average brightness of the
first ten discovered was 8.5 as reckoned in star magnitude. The second ten
was 9.5, the third 10.5 the fourth 11, and so on. Only a few of the first
discovered were brighter than eighth magnitude, with only one being a possible
naked eye object. In general, discoveries thereafter were progressively
fainter. Subsequent hunts of these Lilliputian worlds since the mid to late
nineteenth century have flushed out hundreds more to where today over 6,500
have been logged. It is estimated that there are a half million additional
bodies out there that are greater than a half mile in diameter. Based on
spectroscopic analysis these bodies appear to be made up of the same material
found in meteorites - iron and stone.

To an earthbound observer the original planet would have rivaled Mars
and Jupiter in brightness. If all the once supposed, once existent, and
speculative major constituents of the solar system actually existed today
the planetary line-up might read something like this: Sun, Vulcan, Mercury,
Venus; and then to the other side of Earth; Mars, Phaeton, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, Neptune, Oreon, and Terminus, with the Pluto pair being satellites
of one of the outer planets. (Technically the Earth is not a planet, as
it was never seen by the ancients as a "wandering star." Also,
the question of its own mobility has been raised more frequently in recent
years in terms of a renewed geocentric cosmology.) To an observer with a
telescope each planet displays its own unique visible characteristics. Mercury
is an elusive twilight object. Although Venus appears featureless it does
exhibit an interesting phase sequence. Mars, perhaps the most intriguing
telescopic planet, reveals polar ice caps, dust storms, and its ochre deserts.
To the earthbound telescopic observer the visual challenge of Phaeton, if
it still existed, might have been the discernment of surface features through
its atmosphere. Jupiter is a spectacle with its cloud bands and retinue
of moons. Saturn, of course, is a showpiece with its magnificent rings.
Uranus, the turned over planet, is an intriguing greenish disk with its
wheeling satellite system, while the tiny disk of distant Neptune is another
intriguing challenge to the telescopic planetary observer.

Maverick pieces of Phaeton provide an interesting spectacle for earthbound
observers. Man continues to observe meteors and comets as monuments of mystique
and beauty in a manner, or air, not unlike the "natural exhibits"
on Earth which are celebrated as our outstanding national parks and monuments.
Like their celestial counterparts these geographic monuments represent interesting
relics of bygone catastrophe. "Shooting stars," or meteors, those
evanescent streaks of light visible every few minutes on any clear dark
night, are a material evidence of the fragments that are still raining down
on the planets. Most of the pieces that continue to arrive are rather small.
The typical meteor that matches the brightest star in brilliance is caused
by a particle perhaps no larger than a small marble. These particles do
although arrive at a terrific rate of speed, often tens of miles per second.
The typical particle arriving from space, called a meteoroid, encounters
the Earth's atmosphere and heats by friction to luminescence at perhaps
60 miles high and burns up by the time it reaches down to about 30 miles
high. The light phenomenon is called a meteor. If the object does reach
the ground it is called a meteorite, and if found might end up in the hands
of a collector. A piece big enough to survive its passage through the atmosphere
and leave a collectable specimen on the ground might initially be the size
of a grapefruit. The word meteor has been derived from the Greek word meaning
"something in the air." Meteors were once thought to be strictly
an atmospheric phenomenon, similar to lightning, hence the word meteor comes
from the same root word as meteorology, which we use today in reference
to the study and observation of the weather. If it were not for the fact
that the word meteorology was already "taken" by the atmospheric
sciences discipline and weather forecasting industry the word would apply
today to the study of meteorites. Instead, the word "meteoritics"
was coined in reference to the science or study of meteorites. For many
centuries peculiar stones, which we now call meteorites, have been found
on the Earth. People thought these were formed when lightning struck rock
and melted it or when lightning fused dust in the air. It was a long time
before the connection between these odd rocks and meteors became known.

In 1803 a French scientist went further and proved that meteorites were
the same as meteors, and that they did, in fact, come from outside the Earth,
beyond the sky. This idea was slow to be accepted. A few years later the
American President, Thomas Jefferson, himself quite a scientist, heard that
two professors had found a meteorite in western Connecticut. His own skepticism
is supposed to have prompted him to say "I could more easily believe
that two Yankee professors were liars than that stones would fall from the
sky." In more recent years scientists have proved that the streaks
and flashes of light seen in the clear sky at night are caused by bits of
iron and stone burning up as they hit the outer edge of the Earth's atmosphere.
The brightest meteorites are called bolides or fireballs and can light up
the sky and ground for hundreds of miles around. Some even make noise and
leave smoke trails. A few have reached the Earth and struck buildings. In
recent years one struck a person and another struck a car. Although one
person was bruised and scarred, nobody on record has ever been killed by
a meteorite. A government report issued some years ago stated that the random
probability of any one individual on Earth being struck and killed by a
meteorite was once every 320 years. Meanwhile, as the government spends
countless millions of dollars in the search for extraterrestrial life, it
has embraced another matter, it has taken on the concern of our protection
from the possible collision of Earth by wandering asteroids. It is also
possible that a knowledge of asteroids will illuminate a passage of Scripture.
We read in Revelation 8:8, "And the second angel sounded, and as it
were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea." It
may be fruitless to speculate on how God will bring this to pass for He
could use any supernatural means He chooses to bring about such world-shaking
events. This is precisely what most asteroids are - mountains hurtling through
space.

A few thousand years ago when meteors were much more plentiful the Earth
might have been a more dangerous place to live, but with fewer people back
then the probability of a person being struck was perhaps statistically
similar to that of the present. On a dark, clear moonless night one can
see about ten meteors per hour in a small part of the sky. This rate for
the whole sky during the course of 24 hours translates into literally millions
of meteors daily. It is estimated that each day some 5,000 tons of meteoritic
dust and debris reach the Earth. Another way of saying it is that five to
ten pounds of meteoritic material comes to every square mile of the Earth's
surface each year. Although countless meteorites arrive annually, fewer
than 2,000 have been recovered that are large enough, and spectacular enough,
to be put on permanent display in museums. The protective quality of the
Earth's atmosphere is roughly equal to fourteen vertical feet of solid rock,
so it is no wonder that few of these extraterrestrial bullets get through
to pose a danger to people. Because of their great velocity even a small
cosmic projectile packs a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. This was
vividly demonstrated during the "string of pearls" comet collisions
with Jupiter in 1994. Based on the study of ballistics, Meteor Crater in
Arizona, which is nearly a mile wide overall, was caused by an object perhaps
only 100 feet across. Given that all meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites
are but fragments and effects fathered by a single original planetary body,
it is through a technicality that they cannot truly be called a falling
star or shooting star. When their particles light up in our atmosphere they
are not a falling ''star'' at all but a falling or planet."

Meteorites have been classified into three main distinct types based
upon the prevalence of nickel-iron in their specimens. The first group,
called aerolites, are the stony meteorites which are made up entirely of
rocky material. Aerolites may although occasionally contain trace amounts
of nickel-iron. The second group of meteorites are called siderolites. These
contain about an equal amount of metal and stone. They show about the same
outward appearance as any nickel iron meteorite found in the field, but
inside they are strikingly different. Some show a network of nickel-iron
with the meshes filled with crystals of olivine, these are called Pallasites.
Others show irregular grains of nickel-iron embedded in a stony matrix,
called Mesosiderites. The third group of meteorites are called siderites.
These are the meteorites that consist of raw bright metal when cleaned and
polished. In the field they are usually found with a rusty colored or black
oxide crust. The nickel-iron material is very dense and heavy, difficult
to cut, and magnetically attractive.

The most famous meteorite impact site in the world is Meteor Crater near
Flagstaff, Arizona. It is evident that the crater, which is a circular depression
nearly a mile wide overall and nearly 600 feet deep, was formed a few thousand
years ago, shortly after the Flood epoch. It is estimated that a mass of
iron 100 feet across and weighing 300,000 tons, traveling from the northwest
at ten miles per second, violently exploded on impact excavating the crater
and scattering bits of iron across the adjacent desert. Other impact formations
of decidedly meteoritic origin have since been discovered around the world
but none are so "fresh," well formed, and unmistakable as Meteor
Crater. It should be noted that as recent as our century significant anomalous
Earth shaking impacts have occurred. Noteworthy is the anomalous event which
occurred near Tunguska, in a remote area of central Siberia, in the early
daylight hours of June 30, 1908. It is not understood exactly what occurred
but it is evident that a celestial body of some kind appeared as a huge
fireball and made its plunge to Earth barely leaving a trace of itself behind
while devastating a enormous tract of evergreen forest. The account which
had numerous eyewitnesses has many elements of good science fiction. When
the object hit, "a tongue of flame" shot up from the horizon appearing
to "cut the sky in two."

The fact that meteorites are similar to the asteroidal fragments circulating
between Mars and Jupiter and because meteorites are made up of dense metal
and lighter rock, it is believed that these materials are quite similar
to what is inside the Earth. From the fact that meteorites are of three
basic types, iron, stony-iron, and stony, many scientists believe that these
are similar to the types of differentiated material existing at various
depths within the Earth. The iron-nickel is the same type of materialbelieved to represent the foundational material in the central core
of the Earth, while the stony irons resemble material deep within the Earth
but outside the Earth's iron core, and the stony material represents the
characteristic lighter superficial and surface material. It is also thought
that this sequence represents the original structure of Phaeton. It is a
diagnostic fact that the very heavy dense nickel-iron material could not
have formed out in the asteroid belt where there is a virtual absence of
gravity and in an unfinished accretion process. When a siderite is sawed
open and the inner surfaces are polished and etched with acid peculiar patterns
develop called Widmanstatten patterns, after Count Alois von Widmanstatten
of Vienna who discovered the octahedral figures while treating specimens
in 1808. These patterns are edges of large crystals whose forms are dependent
upon the proportion of nickel to iron. The patterns, which do not appear
in surface terrestrial iron ores, are indicative of a once hot liquid iron-nickel
mixture which cooled very slowly, under great pressure, for a long period
of time. These pattern of lines show that meteorites, or their asteroid
cousins, could not have formed singly. The crystals could formonly
as a part of a great mass of molten material integral to a body the size
of a planet. Most meteorites show evidence of having been affected by the
separation of heavy and light chemical elements, that would occur only in
bodies attendant with significant gravity to produce the separation as heavier
elements settled toward the center. The surface gravity on the largest asteroid,
Ceres, is estimated to be only about 1/25 of that on Earth. The stony-iron
siderolites would, accordingly, represent a transitional material found
at intermediate depths of a parent planetary body. Tiny diamonds found in
some meteorites are also indicative of an original high-pressure, high-temperature
environment, again, as in the interior of a planet. Veins of magnesium sulfate
in some meteorite specimens may even indicate that this material was deposited
by water on the parent body.

The issue of life in outer space has been a long standing speculation
as it relates to the question of meteorites. When the Apollo astronauts
returned from the Moon they were quarantined as a safeguard to protect humanity
from possible alien micro-biological infection. As it turned out it was
certain that these men walked across a sterile lunar surface. The next place
scientists looked for life was on Mars. Life on Mars was considered possible
if not likely. In 1976 the failure of the Viking landers to detect any kind
of life on Mars whatsoever dealt a crushing blow to exobiologists and cosmic
evolutionists. Mars was found to be as sterile as the Moon. Interest in
Mars among the general public subsided after NASA reluctantly published
its conclusions from the Viking program. Failing to find life on Mars, scientists
began to search outside the solar system, on planets surrounding distant
stars (if they even exist). The nearest of these could never be reached
in a lifetime. The quest for life did not stop there although. Scientists
have found something else to excite their interests. Their attention was
turned to meteorites. Some meteorites were found to contain "organic
molecules." In meteorites which have landed on Earth, and even in a
few lunar samples gathered by the Apollo astronauts, molecules have been
discovered which on Earth are associated with life, including amino acids,
the building blocks of life. A great deal of attention was focused on experiments
in which such molecules were made in a laboratory by passing an electric
current through ordinary gasses such as ammonia, methane, and water. This
has long been touted as evidence that lifelike molecules appear spontaneously
and that life thus must "evolve" everywhere. It is said that the
organic molecules in meteorites must have formed in a similar way. In spite
of all the experiments nothing really shows that the organic molecules found
in meteorites formed from life at all, nor are they any true indicator of
life. It need not concern us that such molecules form easily under certain
circumstances. Is it not sensible that God would have made us from the simple
molecules He had previously formed in the nature of things? if it were extremely
difficult for such molecules to form naturally man would have a difficult
time metabolizing food into the appropriate molecules within his body. As
it says in Genesis 2:7, Adam was made from the dust of the ground. Even
though the soil of the Earth is lifeless material, it is rich in organic
compounds. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that some of the same
"stuff" from which man is physically made is not only found in
the dust of the Earth but also in the dust on the Moon. It stillrequires
an act of God to create life.

Since the time of Phaeton's demolition, comets have fascinated mankind.
Throughout most of history the appearance of comets have been interpreted
as omens of disaster. Perhaps that is an instinctive response to an intuitive
knowledge of their actual catastrophic origin. In reality, comets, like
their cousin asteroids, are just small fragmented bodies of debris in orbit
around the Sun. Like the asteroids, comets have highly inclined, and sometimes
very elliptical, orbits. They may come as close to the Sun as a few million
miles or go out further away than Pluto. It is only when they venture into
the inner solar system, closer to the Sun than Earth, that they become visible
with their spectacular tail. Nearly every generation sees a bright comet
with a tail millions of miles long. The tail is formed when the heat of
the Sun causes some of the more volatile components of the comet to vaporize
and leave the body of the comet. The tail is "blown" away by the
force of the solar wind and streams for millions of miles in a direction
away from the Sun, and is illuminated by the Sun.

From ground based and space probe analysis comets appear to be made up
of a loose conglomerate of rock and ice. Comets are very likely chunks of
crustal material from the original planetary body where an abundance of
subsurface water and surface ice was most likely present. That is probably
why most comets are relatively light weight and small, and have extremely
eccentric orbits. It is estimated that comets lose about 1/200 of their
mass each time they pass near the Sun. This means that a comet like Halley's,
which comes back often, would be exhausted in less than 10,000 years or
so. By means of ground based spectroscopic analysis, and verified by later
space probe reconnaissance, these celestial mavericks are found to be composed
of a variety of materials, some of which include nitrogen, carbon monoxide,
cyanogen, methane, ammonia, water ice, and other frozen volatiles. Also,
such non-volatiles as sodium, iron, nickel, and chromium have been diagnosed
to be present in comet dust. In short, comets have commonly been designated
as "dirty snowballs."

Comets with short periods should not exist at all if the solar system
is billions of years old. This has long been recognized as a problem by
astronomers. Rather than admit that this is truly an evidence for a young
solar system they have invented a mechanism to replace the comets as soon
as they are burned out. They have made use of the fact that comets fall
naturally into two categories - long period comets and short period comets.
Short period comets are considered to be those with periods of a few years
to a few hundred years. It is the comets from this group that are seen over
and over again. The most famous of all, Halley's comet, belongs to this
group and has a period of 76 years. The comet with the shortest period,
only 3.3 years, is Eneke's. comet. Comet 1907 II, Grigg-Mellish, is just
about the longest period comet which has made more than one apparition during
the time in which accurate records have been kept. The period of this comet
is 164.3 years, almost exactly the same as that of the planet Neptune, which
is 164.8 years. Therefore its mean distance from the Sun is about the same,
namely, 30 A.U. The long-period comets are seen only once and have periods
in the thousands of years. It is now often thought that the long period
comets are drawn in from the supposed Oort cloud "reservoir" as
they are kicked into the solar system, toward the Sun, by passing stars.
It is then thought that the immense gravitational pull of Jupiter further
perturbs the comets making them short period comets, thus constantly replenishing
the supply of short period comets in the solar system. It is truly amazing
that such an elaborate, flimsy, and untenable mechanism is constructed in
the minds of lettered scientists. Normally in the sciences such ad hoc
assumptions are rejected out of hand. It is not proper to invent some
principle or mechanism just to make a theory work. The profound foolishness
of this becomes ever more clear when it is seen that a simple yet sensible
and most profound solution can be worked out from the raw scientific data
of the Bible. Thus the author endeavors to show in this writing.

The current popular idea among scientists that the dinosaurs were wiped
out by a giant meteorite, or meteorites, striking the Earth may be partly
true, although their millions and millions of years in time scale is way
off. Meteoritic bombardment during the Flood was quite possibly rather intense,
and it likely continued to a considerable degree after the Flood epoch.
Since the Ark contained representatives of all land animals, that would
necessarily include the dinosaurs and other types of extinct prehistoric
land animals. All of these would have walked off the Ark after the Flood
to replenish the Earth. Perhaps some of the dinosaurs were killed by anomalous
meteorite falls some time later, as well. Immediately after the Flood the
Earth stood denuded of its previous verdant tropical forests. It was a place
left with enormous geographic change and new climatic conditions that were
harsh compared to former times. Harmful radiation from the Sun and space
came down through a changed atmosphere, in much greater doses. The Earth
was no longer suitable for accommodating great numbers of such large exotic
animals like the dinosaurs, as it was in former times before the Flood.
Most of the dinosaurs probably died out after afew centuries. The
most likely cause, although, of their ultimate extinction was not by natural
agents, but by man himself who hunted them down for game or sport. The medieval
"knight in shining armor" who slew his dragon to prove himself
and gain recognition as a great hunter or warrior is a tradition that has
a sound historical basis. Ancient peoples all over the world have told of
unusual, reptile-like creatures that once roamed the Earth. There were many
different types, both large and small, and many different names for them.
People in Europe called them dragons, many descriptions of which sound like
dinosaurs. As recent as the height of France as a great empire there were
accounts of an animal that was killed near one of its towns which was bigger
than an ox and had long sharp pointed horns on its head. It was an animal
very similar in description, if not identical, to the Triceratops. The Triceratops
supposedly died out over 65,000,000 years ago. In China, such stories are
numerous.

In 1977 a relatively fresh carcass of a Plesiosaur like creature was
raised in a net from a depth of 900 feet in the waters off the coast of
New Zealand. The creature was 32 feet long and weighed 4,000 pounds. It
had four fins, each approximately three feet long. Soon after a few initial
reports were broadcast the media went silent about the incident. In current
times there have been repeated rumors coming out of a remote and nearly
inaccessible region of the African Congo describing a brontosaur-like creature.

The perennial question of just how the parent body of the meteorites,
asteroids, and comets could have exploded remains obscure, although nuclear
processes seem to be intimated by evidences in meteorites recovered on Earth.
It has been objected that planets are not hot enough even in their cores
for nuclear reactions. Yet natural fission reactors have been known to operate
on the Earth's surface in the geologic past. It has been suggested that
one natural way to produce the isotopic anomalies observed in meteorites,
and supply the sufficient energy, is through a matter-antimatter explosion,
possibly resulting from some kind of imbalance caused by amagnetic
separation and storage of the potential destabilizing force over time before
the explosion; or from some sort of chain reaction high-energy generating
critical imbalance of another sort; or from the intervention of intelligent
beings. The latter possibility should not be lightly dismissed.